6.5: Listening Summary

Environmental and physical barriers to effective listening include furniture placement, environmental noise such as sounds of traffic or people talking, physiological noise such as a sinus headache or hunger, and psychological noise such as stress or anger.

Cognitive barriers to effective listening include the difference between speech and thought rate that allows us “extra room” to think about other things while someone is talking and limitations in our ability or willingness to concentrate or pay attention. Personal barriers to effective listening include a lack of listening preparation, poorly structured and/or poorly delivered messages, and prejudice.

There are several bad listening practices that we should avoid, as they do not facilitate effective listening:

• Interruptions that are unintentional or serve an important or useful purpose are not considered bad listening. When interrupting becomes a habit or is used in an attempt to dominate a conversation, then it is a barrier to effective listening.
• Distorted listening occurs when we incorrectly recall information, skew information to fit our expectations or existing schemata, or add material to embellish or change information.
• Eavesdropping is a planned attempt to secretly listen to a conversation, which is a violation of the speakers’ privacy.
• Aggressive listening is a bad listening practice in which people pay attention to a speaker in order to attack something they say.
• Narcissistic listening is self-centered and self-absorbed listening in which listeners try to make the interaction about them by interrupting, changing the subject, or drawing attention away from others.
• Pseudo-listening is “fake listening,” in that people behave like they are paying attention and listening when they actually are not.

Improving Listening Competence

Many people admit that they could stand to improve their listening skills. This section will help us do that. In this section, we will learn strategies for developing and improving competence at each stage of the listening process. We will also define active listening and the behaviors that go along with it. Looking back to the types of listening discussed earlier, we will learn specific strategies for sharpening our critical and empathetic listening skills. In keeping with our focus on integrative learning, we will also apply the skills we have learned in academic, professional, and relational contexts and explore how culture and gender affect listening.

Listening Competence at Each Stage of the Listening Process

We can develop competence within each stage of the listening process, as the following list indicates: Alice Ridge, “A Perspective of Listening Skills,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 5–6.

To improve listening at the receiving stage,

• prepare yourself to listen,
• discern between intentional messages and noise,
• concentrate on stimuli most relevant to your listening purpose(s) or goal(s),
• be mindful of the selection and attention process as much as possible,
• pay attention to turn-taking signals so you can follow the conversational flow, and
• avoid interrupting someone while they are speaking in order to maintain your ability to receive stimuli and listen.

To improve listening at the interpreting stage,

• identify main points and supporting points;
• use contextual clues from the person or environment to discern additional meaning;
• be aware of how a relational, cultural, or situational context can influence meaning;
• be aware of the different meanings of silence; and
• note differences in tone of voice and other paralinguistic cues that influence meaning.

To improve listening at the recalling stage,

• use multiple sensory channels to decode messages and make more complete memories;
• repeat, rephrase, and reorganize information to fit your cognitive preferences; and
• use mnemonic devices as a gimmick to help with recall.

To improve listening at the evaluating stage,

• separate facts, inferences, and judgments;
• be familiar with and able to identify persuasive strategies and fallacies of reasoning;
• assess the credibility of the speaker and the message; and
• be aware of your own biases and how your perceptual filters can create barriers to effective listening.

To improve listening at the responding stage:

• ask appropriate clarifying and follow-up questions and paraphrase information to check understanding,
• give feedback that is relevant to the speaker’s purpose/motivation for speaking,
• adapt your response to the speaker and the context, and
• do not let the preparation and rehearsal of your response diminish earlier stages of listening.

Active listening refers to the process of pairing outwardly visible positive listening behaviors with positive cognitive listening practices. You can improve listening competence at the receiving stage by preparing yourself to listen and distinguishing between intentional messages and noise; at the interpreting stage by identifying main points and supporting points and taking multiple contexts into consideration; at the recalling stage by creating memories using multiple senses and repeating, rephrasing, and reorganizing messages to fit cognitive preferences; at the evaluating stage by separating facts from inferences and assessing the credibility of the speaker’s message; and at the responding stage by asking appropriate questions, offering paraphrased messages, and adapting your response to the speaker and the situation.

Active listening is the process of pairing outwardly visible positive listening behaviors with positive cognitive listening practices and is characterized by mentally preparing yourself to listen, working to maintain focus on concentration, using appropriate verbal and nonverbal back-channel cues to signal attentiveness, and engaging in strategies like note taking and mentally reorganizing information to help with recall.

Contributors and Attributions

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